Given that we the people have no control today over whether Obamacare is marketed to our emotions, it is reasonable to wonder what kinds of advertising campaigns for other government policies will be launched at us. Can a divided Congress stop any of them?

Most of the spending under George W. Bush was by the Pentagon, although a good portion of that was on foreign-relations-oriented PR overseas. How much of that kind of thing the Pentagon “should” be doing is part of a much larger, long-running argument about the division of labor between civilian diplomacy (State) and military diplomacy (Defense). But HHS came in a healthy second throughout the period 2002-2011.

Advertising is a dangerous thing in the hands of the armed state. I am no more in favor of Republican administrations spending a lot of money on it than of Democrats doing so. With Obamacare, we have reached the fork in the road. A government with the powers conferred by Obamacare cannot, on principle, be trusted to “advertise” its policies to us. The inevitable descent into untrustworthy propaganda has already begun. Until Obamacare is repealed, it will continue to get worse.

About the Author:J.E. Dyer is a retired US Naval intelligence officer who served around the world, afloat and ashore, from 1983 to 2004.

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